Help make new trails at Langsett Reservoir

The aim of their work is to open up the area to people with disabilities who ride adapted bikes, such as our members from Experience Community. At present there are few challenging circular routes in the Peak District that are suitable for hand bikes and trikes. They also plan to draw people off the top bridleway over North America which is getting eroded with the weather and lots of use, and build a new trail to help avoid the really steep cobbled section at the top of the reservoir which is a really barrier to independent handbikers. They also propose to put in some short pieces of one-way singletrack which will be a great places for beginners and kids to develop their skills. They also want to put some new footpaths in which should mean that the bridleways are less busy.

Experience Community Members at Langsett

There are a lot of documents on the planning site: they have clearly thought really carefully about this and Yorkshire Water are really keen for this to happen. This link will give you an idea of their plans: https://pam.peakdistrict.gov.uk/files/59708240.pdf

The details are now up for consultation and we need members to tell the Peak District National Park how great these are. For capacity reasons, the aim isn’t to increase visitor numbers, rather to give people more opportunities to ride. However, in the future this might lead to opening up local links and Yorkshire Water are major landowners and are keen on innovation so it would be great to show them the value of mountain biking.

Here are four arguments that you can use to support this proposal.

For maximum impact we recommend you stick roughly to these.
1) It is a great opportunity for more accessible trails and circular, challenging and picturesque routes. At the moment few options exist.
2) Families who usually walk there can now get to ride there too.
3) The routes take riders off the road once you get past the dam, making it safer especially for vulnerable riders
4) Having a weatherproof track meaning you avoid the more sensitive areas which means less erosion (this mountain bikers support all over the Peak District).
5) There would be better shared user trails (wider, better sight lines) and a reduction in numbers on each trail which reduce potential conflict between different user groups.

We also need people who live in the local parish to support this so please pass this on to anyone you know who lives or works at Langsett. We know Bank View Café is supporting this. Views from the locals have a heavy weight and will make or break these schemes so this is hugely important.

Make it quick! The decision will be made in early September so we need to move fast. Lets get in our responses in!